So, does this make Shakespeare an instinctive conservative?

[steepholm]

In folk and fairy tales, as we know from Howl's Moving Castle, the eldest sibling is bound to fail first, and worst, leaving the youngest and most despised to collect the glory. In Shakespeare this pattern is repeated rather neatly in the Cap o' Rushes figure of Cordelia, as every fule kno. (Or do they? In Shakespeare's hands Cordelia fails too, and she was the favourite rather than being a Cinderella type.)

There's no denying, though, that Shakespeare prefers elder to younger brothers. Look at his list of younger-brother nasties: Edmund, Claudius, Richard III, Antonio (as in The Tempest) - actual or would-be usurpers all. Add Prince Henry's brother John, who's loyal but in such as way as to congeal the blood, and it's a pretty unappealing bunch. The only bad elder brother I can think of is Oliver in As You Like It, and even he's counterbalanced by Duke Frederick - yet another usurping younger brother, come to think of it.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention loyal Marcus Andronicus - but I've never quite been sure whether he's older or younger than Titus. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten.

So, does this mean that Shakespeare (an eldest brother himself) had some kind of party loyalty to his confreres? Perhaps, but it strikes me as interesting that his sympathies are so often with the primogenetically-advantaged, where folk tale is so often aligned the other way. Admittedly he bought his plots wholesale at St Paul's churchyard, but there were other plots he could have got, were there not - had he so chosen?

Comments

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

In the political context, I'm guessing that writing stories about successful, happy, popular usurping younger siblings probably wouldn't have made for a long career, mass duplication of your works, and a place in history. :-) That, however, would lend weight to your "political conservative" thesis...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

This is true - though surely there's more to being a younger brother than usurping?

I've just remembered the two brothers in Cymbeline - I can't remember their names, but they seem to get on rather well. As too, in a grislier way, do Demetrius and Chiron in Titus - until they both end up as pastie ingredients.

Shakespearian brother-sister combos are usually much closer, I might add, apropos of not much. Perhaps there's less potential rivalry?

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Well, Bianca is kind of awful ...

But yeah, I think there is something in the idea of younger brothers who challenge = bad; younger women who are dutiful = good. But that is possibly also due to audience expectation and norms.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, Bianca is hard to warm to - though her position's far from enviable. Again, we end up having more sympathy for the elder sib.

I suppose part of it is that the kind of Italianate stories Shakespeare tended to turn to for his comedy plots do tend to be all about upholding the values of the landed class, and I rather wish he'd done more with the folk traditions that seem to cut the other way.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think he was indeed an arch-conservative in many ways, and certainly when it came to primogeniture and property. Isn't he supposed to have been a lawyer at one time? Maybe he got involved in a nasty case over a will!

In King John though, and to some extent even in Lear, he does seem to be interested in the "outsider" position of bastards and he certainly gives those two an appealing sense of humour.

One elder son who comes off really badly in comparison to his younger sister is poor Mamilius...

[fjm.livejournal.com]

The younger son makes it, is of course a consolatory tale for kids who know they won't inherit and may never have the property to get married.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yes - and that allows him play to both sides of the audience (as usual!), doesn't it? Favouring the elder brother keeps the more powerful part of your audience happy (divine right of elder-hood?) while the riff-raff have nothing to inherit anyway, so maybe get more fun seeing the younger (=> evil) usurping boys raising hell and probably being caught in the end.

Now I've been searching for counter-examples, it strikes me how many only children there are - as in all the other fairy/folk tales not about the youngest sibling, maybe? (Dogs are driving me mad atm so sorry if this makes no sense!)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot of sense - which is of course to say that the prevalence of only children had struck me too! (Which makes me wonder, not entirely relevantly, how common only children were at this period - out of those who survived infancy, that is.)